Famous Concubines: Wu Zetian

Post by Ancient Origins.

Recap...

It has been a while so I thought I ought to log in and catch you up on what this girl has been up to. First a bit of a recap....

My RL life took a turn for the weird this year... and for stress relief I have found myself in SL
more of late. Now here's the thing: I have been role playing in SL for a while. First it was Firefly sims with "D", then Startrek sims with my friend Mandy. And if you've been keeping up you know I began playing in Gor this year.

The whole Gor thing started as an accident. Sort of. my first few weeks in SL I fell in love--they call it the SL effect--had a torrid affair in SL. Three years worth. When he dumped me, I was broken. Then I thought maybe we could be friends, and for a while we were. Sort of. Back just before he told me to go away, he was building in Gor and roleplaying there. I admit my first interest in Gor was hoping to bump into him. Maybe. See if he was there. But he never was. Sadly, I will always mourn the loss of his friendship. I still think of him; I suspect I will for the rest of my life. But life goes on. This summer I decided to try the Gor thing in earnest.

I began my SL career seven years ago as a "courtesan." In Firefly I played a "licensed companion." In Star Trek an Orion Slave Girl (it's not easy being green!). I like flirting and men with intelligence. Men who can hold a conversation. Men with imagination, and a sense of humor. (I also blame D for spoiling me there. He set the bar rather high!)  What being in Gor has taught me is that in my heart of hearts, I am a submissive. I like playing the role of "slave." It also taught me that I am very very picky about "Masters."

I tried being a city slave girl in a couple of Gorean sims. Not so much fun.  Most of the time the men are busy running around raiding or being raided, the free women are hiding in the basements when they are not belittling the slaves, and the slaves keep scrubbing the floors waiting for the fireworks to end so they can go back to pouring wine. No one talks to or flirts with slaves. It is all "come here slut/beast and do X."

In July I took one man's collar. That turned out badly. While collared to that Master I met a Jarl who told me he would claim me someday. I've been chatting with him off and on in IM since (and I like the conversations), but I haven't seen him since day one although he is online every time I log in. How long does a girl wait to be claimed? In the Gor Hub I met another Master who was interesting and we talked about the philosophy of being a slave/sub in RL. But he wants a slave in RL as well as SL, has a bunch of girls who fly across the country to be with him for days at a time in RL. Nice guy, but I am NOT into that.

So now I am between Masters. Hanging out in the Gor Hub. Hoping for... Hmmm... I don't know what I am hoping for....

Famous Courtesans: La Dame aux Camélias

"Marie Duplessis (January 15, 1824 - February 3, 1847) was a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. She was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, one of Duplessis' lovers. Much of what is known about her has been derived from the literary persona and contemporary legends."

"Marie Duplessis was born Rose Alphonsine Plessis in 1824 at Nonant-le-Pin, Normandy, France. Her father became her de facto pimp when she was about 12 years old. At the age of 15, she moved to Paris where she found work in a dress shop."

"Duplessis was evidently an extremely attractive young woman, with a petite figure and an enchanting smile. By the time she was 16, she had become aware that prominent men were willing to give her money in exchange for her company in both private and social settings. She became a courtesan and learned to read, write, and to stay abreast of world events so as to be able to converse on these topics with her clients and at social functions. She also added the faux noble "Du" to her name."

"Duplessis was both a popular courtesan and the hostess of a salon, where politicians, writers, and artists gathered for stimulating conversation and socializing. She rode in the Bois de Boulogne and attended opera performances. She also had her portrait painted by Édouard Viénot."

"Duplessis was the mistress of Alexandre Dumas, between September 1844 and August 1845. Afterwards, she is believed to have become the mistress of composer Franz Liszt, who reportedly wished to live with her. Throughout her short life, her reputation as a discreet, intelligent, and witty lover was well known. She remained in the good graces of many of her benefactors even after her relationships with them had ended."

"Marie Duplessis died of tuberculosis at the age of 23 on February 5, 1847. Two of her former lovers, Swedish Count Von Stakelberg and French count Édouard de Perregaux, whom she had briefly married, were by her side. Within a few weeks of her death, her belongings were auctioned off to pay her debts. Still, her funeral in Montmartre cemetery was said to have been lavish, and attended by hundreds of people."

"Dumas' romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias appeared within a year. In the book, Dumas became 'Armand Duval' and Duplessis 'Marguerite Gautier'. "

"Adapted for the stage, La Dame aux Camélias premiered at the Theatre de Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to put the story to music. His work became the 1853 opera La Traviata with the female protagonist 'Marguerite Gautier' renamed 'Violetta Valéry'."

"In the English-speaking world, La Dame aux Camélias became known as Camille and sixteen versions have been performed at Broadway theatres alone."

information from Wikipedia

Where I am going, where I have been

I know... you are confused. Wondering how you got here and where it all went. Me too.

First I had the "Diary of a Second Life Courtesan" blog. Talked about Second Life, romance, dating, love, sex, history of sexuality, everything up to and including erotica. Very popular that blog.

Then my life went off on a tangent. (Men. Go figure.) Gave up the courtesan thing. The blog mutated into stories about my Second Life with one man, my friends, fashion, dancing. Later the roller coaster took a dive.

So that blog had to go away. (Yeah. For the man.) So far away that I deleted it ... mostly. Thing about writers is we back up shit all the time. Words. They are precious, you know. Sometimes words are all we have.

And you know me. I never stop writing for long. So next blog: "Dancing Through My Second Life." Talked about friendship, romance, and fashion, all that stuff I was still feeling but not mentioning names.

And I was happy again. So happy for a while that I didn't even have time to blog.

But things are changing again. (Yeah. Men.)

Last night I decided I was done accommodating the men in my life. I mean geez! What a sad sister I have become. Sit around and wait like a china doll on a shelf watching him as he loses interest. Be miserable, unfocused, no sense of reality. Make a choice. Give up one man to make the other one happy and wham! That one puts you back on the shelf too. WTF!

So this morning I decided screw it. I had 900 hits a day on the old Courtesan blog. Went down to 10 a month maybe on the Dancing blog. Here it is fellas. I'm going back to my good old bad ways.

Moved this whole shebang back over to http://tsaijie.blogspot.com/. Gonna write this blog here now. Maybe resurrect the advice from the Courtesan.

So I'm taking it one day at a time. And if the roller coaster takes a dive, well hell, there are lots of fish in the sea. RL? SL? Who knows. Mebbe I'll go be a Companion in a Firefly sim. No strings. No pain.

You see me in-world come say hi. We'll go dancing.

The day I changed my profile

So here we are. Nearly spring. Three months into 2009. I know some of you have wondered why I haven't been writing as much as I used to. The answer is both simple and complex. Real life has kept me busy, sure. But my chosen second life has kept me even busier. Fact of the matter is that for some time now I have been too busy in SL not only to blog about it, but also to do most of the things I have done in the past. For one thing, I am not dancing in clubs anymore, no more stripping, no more escort jobs . . . no clients at all. In fact most of the places I used to work, Perfect Droom, Lotus Moon, Blue Noise, are all long gone (long in SL is, after all, often a matter of weeks. not years) or they are so changed as to be unrecognizable.

What!? Does this mean you are no longer a courtesan? How can this be? I hear you asking.

It's not that I am not a courtesan . . . rather it is that all my skills, all my time, and all my heart are devoted to one man alone in all of SL. I am the personal companion, or concubine if you will, of Draven Sautereau. I am coming up on my second rez day in 2 months, and a month after that is the anniversary of when I met Draven. We've actually just passed the one year mark of our decision to be exclusive to each other in SL. I think it is about time I made it clear up front here in the blog, too.

So today I am commemorating that by changing my profile on this page. From now on the "About Me" section reflects the fact that only for Draven does my SL heart beat. Scary isn't it that you can find something so real in a place made only of fantasies?

Visiting Blackburne

I've been to the Firefly Bar in Blackburne again. I like this little town. Draven was there, too, and we danced a for a bit. The folks are real friendly and don't look down their noses at me as a whore for being a Companion, as happens on some worlds on the edge, nor do they get all deferential, as on planets in the inner systems. Pretty nice people all around. It may be that as a companion here closer to Sihnon, I am more respectable than I would be on some Rim worlds.

After dancing in the Firefly bar, I ran into and chatted with Cholgosh, a Blackburne Enforcer. We sat on the porch across from the bar and listened to the reports coming in from Hale's Moon of a Reaver attack and something about robots, War bots. Blackburne has had its own troubles with dangerous human-killing robots on the edges of the town, I was told.

I must find out more about this sector of space if we will be visiting here with any regularity. Aside from not wanting to step on any toes locally (at one point Cholgosh's partner, a spunky woman named Amyla turned up, and I hastily moved to give her the seat next to him so as not to give her any reason to thank I was "treading on the hem of her skirts"), I also need to know what dangers we may face while in this port. When the porch began to get crowded with folks wanting to ask the Enforcer about the news over the Cortex, I slipped away.

I ran into my brother Corwyn down on the street. Since he's the one who first told me about this moon, I asked him about its defenses. He pointed to big guns mounted on top of some of the buildings. There is a huge ship in dock, too, but he tells me it is a Firefly class vessel -- cargo ship, no guns -- and gave me a bit of a tour. I could tell this was a ship with some history. The pilot, whoever he was, had a toy dinosaur and a palm tree on his console. This felt like a ship that was lived in . . . and loved. But the bottom line is that it wouldn't be much help if Reavers attack, except maybe to get a few of Blackburne's inhabitants out of here fast.

An evening in Amatsu Shima

Amatsu Shima is a beautiful sim based in Medieval Japan. One of my oldest friends, Corwyn, is a hogosha to a Geisha house there and a member of the group that does recreation of Japanese history and culture.


Tonight he took me to see the new teahouse he had built. A lovely little building that could hold a tea master and four guests for a traditional Chado or Tea Ceremony. The landscaping around the teahouse including a beautiful little waterfall, was done by Suzanne Logan, who runs the geisha house and school there. The garden has a bamboo grove, flowered walkways, and a sweet little bench where we sat and chatted watching herons in The ocean waves crashing on the rocks, a cat circling among the flowers and the rocky paths, and two friends having quiet conversation. A lovely evening in all.

Famous Courtesans of History: Lalage of Rome

Homer mentioned her in an ode, saying:

"That smile so sweet, that voice so sweet,
Shall still enchant me."

Kipling dedicated an entire poem to her power over men:

It’s twenty-five marches to Narbo,

It’s forty-five more up the Rhone,

And the end may be death in the heather

Or life on an Emperor’s throne.

But whether the Eagles obey us,

Or we go to the Ravens—alone,

I’d sooner be Lalage’s lover

Than sit on an Emperor’s throne!

But who was she? Legend has it that Lalage was a courtesan of ancient Rome, a woman of beauty, wit, charm, and power in a patriarchal society. But if truth be told, no one really knows if there was a woman such as Kipling's Lalage. We do know that the ancient Greeks had a class of courtesans called hetairae, women who were not just prostitutes or ordinary paid sex workers, but rather educated and highly intellectual, and invariably foreign, women. We also know that the hetaira of Greece and Syria eventually became the meretrices of Rome. What were these women and why were they better than ordinary prostitutes?

In his Dialogues of the Courtesans, Lucian (second century AD) relates an exchange between two friends about a successful courtesan: "In the first place, she dresses attractively and looks neat; she's gay with all the men, without being so ready to cackle as you are, but smiles in a sweet bewitching way; later on, she's very clever when they're together, never cheats a visitor or an escort, and never throws herself at the men. If ever she takes a fee for going out to dinner, she doesn't drink too much--that's ridiculous, and men hate women who do--she doesn't gorge herself--that's ill-bred, my dear--but picks up the food with her finger-tips, eating quietly and not stuffing both cheeks full, and, when she drinks, she doesn't gulp, but sips slowly from time to time. . . . Also, she doesn't talk too much or make fun of any of the company, and has eyes only for her customer. These are the things that make her popular with the men. Again, when it's time for bed, she'll never do anything coarse or slovenly, but her only aim is to attract the man and make him love her; these are the things they all praise in her."

Rome made a fine art of licensed prostitution all the way up through the Renaissance. Influenced by the hetairea brought back to the city from wars, class divisions arose among the various women engaged in prostitution. According to Marcellus, "This is the difference between a meretrix [courtesan] and a prostibula [ a common streetwalker]: a meretrix is of a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain both by day and night."

The courtesans of ancient Rome were real and many. Roman men turned to their slave women for basic sexual gratification, to wives to provide them with children, but it was to the courtesans, the foreign hetairea to whom they turned for comfort, companionship and, indeed, for romance. These women may have held more power through their patrons than even the matrons of Rome. And whether or not one of them named Lalage was a vision in the heart of the ordinary Roman soldier as Kipling's beautiful poem claims, there is no doubt that her trade was a thriving one with over 40 different terms for the registration of prostitution in Rome alone.

The name Lalage literally means to talk, and likely--if there was a real Lalage--it was for her mind and her conversation she was beloved, not just for her body. That, gentlemen, is all the difference between a courtesan and a prostitute.

Meeting Mr. Wrong

Last night I got IMed by a fellow I have seen a couple times over the last few weeks. He's the kind of guy who likes to push buttons by saying outrageous things and seeing how a girl will react. So invariably he asks for sex. He also always makes sure to tell me that he never, ever pays for sex, that he doesn't even tip dancers, and that he is poor and doesn't "believe" in Lindens (SL money), whatever that means. Most of the girls at the club have given up on him as a cheapskate, but he's kind of cute, charming and witty even if outrageous, and he's fun to flirt with. So when he asked me to teleport him to my place for a blow job, I tp'ed him to Blue Noise instead. We danced and flirted. Somewhere during the course of the conversation he mentioned he is married in real life. This is not something that bothers me--married or not, it is between him and his wife what he does outside of their relationship. But then he wanted to know if I was married, single, or divorced. Why did that matter, I wondered?

Now, I've given him my perspective on marriage before: It's a great institution, but who wants to be in an institution! Personally I think marriage is good for the protection of children--a safe place to grow up with 2 parents. But if you don't have kids, what is the point of tying yourself down? Most of the time in marriage it is the woman whose freedom is limited by the expectations of society ("Good girls don't") while the man can come and go and play where he pleases ("Boys will be boys").

Think about this: can you come up with one positive word that describes a sexually active woman? No! They are all negative terms. Sexually active women are called sluts, whores, skanks, and tramps. Or we are described by our genitals: cunts, beaver, poon, pussies. The only "good" adjectives to describe women and sex together imply being asexual or having our sexuality controlled by men: maiden, virgin, wife. Even terms like mistress, concubine, paramour, have a negative flavor, indicating women engaged in sex with one man outside the bounds of matrimony. And, Ladies, if you dare to expect to be paid for sex you are a prostitute, no matter how you dress it up (escort, call girl, courtesan). Now try to think of a negative term for a sexually active man--there are none. Men are studs, stallions, or players. Their sexuallity is applauded!

So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised when my friend last night said he'd be uncomfortable with his RL wife having virtual sex in SL, and yet felt fine about chasing SL "tail" himself. Later he qualified that by saying that only casual SL sex was okay, it isn't cheating since it is all a fantasy. I pointed out that there are real people here, the only thing that is a fantasy is the setting. But he was adamant. Casual fuck? Okay. Get emotionally involved in SL? That would be "an affair," thus not acceptible. He seemed pretty pleased that I wasn't looking for a relationship or marriage--that put me in the "non-affair just a fuck" category, I guess.

That was the point at which I dropped to my knees and started to give him a virtual blow job--but he stopped me. His comment was: "Oh, you are one of those!" Now what? Was he having second thoughts about "cheating"? He wanted sex? He didn't want sex? Seems he wanted to be in charge. Its okay to try to seduce a woman and talk her into sex, but if she initiates it. . . . Here's the problem. Our society doesn't expect women to be sexually active or (heaven forfend!) sexually aggressive. Despite the sexual revolution of the 1960s-70s and the ground-breaking work of researchers like Kinsey, there is still an inherently parochial, even puritan attitude about female sexuality in America. And apparently in this fellow, too. Even in SL.

Rules for Flirting

So I was at the Lotus Moon dancing (and flirting) with a very sexy man and we somehow began discussing the rules for flirting. What, you say? Rules? Yes, I tell you. RULES!

Flirting is a fine and noble art. It dates back to the first caveman who took the hand of his cavegirl rather than just thumping her on the head and dragging her off by the hair. The Courtesans of Ancient Greece and Rome knew the game, as did the concubines of China and the Geisha of Japan. (I won't go into the list of famous flirts of history from whom you could learn much, as that is for a future post, but if you want a few names to conjure with, consider Lalage, Yang Guifei, and Inara Serra.) I'm here to tell you we need more lessons in the art of flirting. Ladies, pay attention if you want to get attention. Gentlemen pay heed or risk being rude and crude, and getting slapped.

And in the spirit of sharing the info, I give you my rules for flirting . Here are the first three, stay tuned for future installments. . . .

RULE #1: Never flirt with someone with whom you couldn't be serious. Light flirting is one thing, but it is not fair to tease a man into thinking you'd go to bed with him if you never would. Too many people break this rule, unreasonable expectations are raised, and then people get hurt.

RULE #2: Lay the ground rules up front. If you don't want him then be clear. . . say something to the effect of how: "flirting is so much fun with you because I know you know better than to take me seriously." If you do want him (or her) also make it clear. Say something like: "flattery will get you everywhere, honey." Don't, however, go too quickly too fast. This is a dance, a game. Savor the moment.

RULE #3: Don't Lie. Ever. You can exaggerate. Compliment, of course. But if you tell a whooper, he'll know. And he'll never trust anything you say after that. Flirting is like fencing--feint, step back, thrust. But your point must be true or you'll never get the kill.

Continued: Rule #4